


up all night

by raekentheory



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Multi, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, background Mason/Corey, other background ships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-06-09 04:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raekentheory/pseuds/raekentheory
Summary: Liam is just a normal college student starting his second semester of sophomore year. He plays varsity lacrosse, has way too much neglected homework, and stays up late getting into some fairly typical college shenanigans. Theo is a slightly more average sophomore, with a sketchy past and strangely old enough to be a junior. While their first meeting starts them off on the wrong foot, a series of after-midnight run ins spawns a rather unique friendship, and maybe something more.





	1. January 19th, 12:28 AM

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabbytabbytabby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabbytabbytabby/gifts), [Ithinkwehaveanemergency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithinkwehaveanemergency/gifts), [allidon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allidon/gifts).



> Me, spawning a second college AU immediately after the last one, while neglecting the other two long fics I have going that I _should_ be working on? More likely than you think. Dedicated to Tabs, Adri and Alli for humouring me every time I accidentally word vomit an entire unnecessarily extensive AU at them without meaning to. Which is like, once a week or something.
> 
> Title from the song of the same name by One Direction. Rating subject to change in later chapters, depending on how I feel. Enjoy, I guess?

The party is far louder than Liam likes. The bass is thumping hard enough to rattle the floorboards beneath his feet, and the voices of nearly three dozen teenagers are abuzz in his ears. He lost sight of both Mason and Nolan over twenty minutes ago, exactly thirty-two seconds after spotting Hayden and her roommate Tracy. Which makes them the worst best friends in the universe.

The air’s thick with the smell of sweat and booze and it’s stifling, making the collar of his t-shirt feel tighter than it is. Or it could be how close his ex and her best friend are sitting, cozied up together on an armchair, eyes only for each other. Liam’s happy for them, if they’ve finally gotten their shit together. He’d just rather they not do it in the middle of a crowded living room while occasionally throwing him heated glances. Like they are right now.

“Nope, I’m out,” he coughs, downing the rest of his drink and slipping from the room. He steps into the kitchen, thinking it might be better to breathe, that there might be less people. He’s only half right.

There’s less people, sure, but this still isn’t a place he wants to be. There’s a couple making out on the counter, with the guy’s hands disappearing under the girl’s skirt. Liam makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat and looks away—spotting the door to the outside.

He makes a beeline for it, holding his red cup by the side of his face as he scoots by the couple. Whether it’s to obscure them from his sight, or hide his face from them if they happen to come up for air, Liam isn’t sure.

He just wants out.

He almost misses the step down in his haste, and wobbles slightly, teetering dangerously close to eating shit before he recovers. When he looks up, he frowns. He’d expected a backyard.

Instead, there’s basically an alley. The neighboring fence is fairly close, but glancing left, Liam spots a small gate, and two large bins, one black and one blue. There’s distant music and cheering beyond, so he assumes that must be the backyard. He remembers someone saying something about beer pong earlier.

Softly, he slides the door shut behind him, leaning back against the glass a moment as it muffles the sounds of the party inside. The glass is cool to the touch, like the night air around him, and he breathes it in with a happy sigh. Then he pushes off, headed for the bins by the gate, empty red cup in hand.

Liam’s pretty sure he’s done for the night. He can feel a faint pounding in his right temple, and when he glances down at his watch to confirm, he sees _12:28_ reflected back at him. Certainly not the latest he’s been out on a Friday night, but he’s ready to go home. He figures he’ll sit tight for a bit, let his roommates know where to find him, and see if they reappear by the time he’s ready to go. He doesn’t really want to go hunting for them.

He’s in the middle of sending a text to their group chat with his right hand, so it’s safe to say Liam’s not really paying attention to his left when he goes to throw out his red cup.

“You know those are recyclable, right?”

“Ah!” Liam startles. He fumbles with the cup, halfway into the black bin already, and in his panic to try and get it back, his phone slips from his other hand. It misses the garbage bin and clatters to the ground. “Fuck!”

He stoops to pick it up and is instantly relieved to see nothing broke. Liam stands, tosses the red cup into the recycling, and turns on his intruder with a glare.

The young boy is standing down the alleyway slightly, back leaning against the side of the house. He’s not far from the door, bathed in the light filtering out the kitchen window. His hair’s trimmed short at the back, but a little longer in the front, his bangs curling down his forehead. The harsh shadows on his face from the bulb above him obscure his features, and even though he’s dressed in a black shirt that looks a tad too big, there’s a rough cut of muscle visible on his crossed arms.

If he’d only _looked_ when he’d come outside, Liam would’ve easily spotted him.

“Did I scare you, Dunbar?” There’s a light chuckle woven into the words, and it sets irritation prickling at his skin. He can normally handle something poking fun at him, but not when he doesn’t know who they are, while they’re obviously familiar with him. Rubs him the wrong way.

Liam huffs, lips pressed tightly together as he squints, eyes narrowing in an attempt to get a better look at the guy. He crosses his arms to match the stranger, brows furrowing.

“It is Dunbar, right?”

“Depends,” Liam says tightly, fully aware he’s wearing his lacrosse hoodie blatantly displaying his name against Bruins blue. “Who’s asking?”

Another warm, loose chuckle tumbles out of the stranger as he pushes off the exposed brick, stepping out of the glaring porch light. The move illuminates his khakis, and the dark blue v-neck he’s wearing. Shadows shift over his face as he approaches, framing it instead of obscuring, and reveals a light dusting of scruff along his jawline and green eyes.

His face strikes a vague chord of familiarity in Liam, like maybe they’d shared a class together or he’d passed him in the dorms a lot or—

“I suppose I could’ve led with Lima Bean,” the guy says, delight curving one side of his lips up into a smirk.

That’s when it clicks.

Two Thursdays ago, in the dining hall. He’d been crawling down the food line with Mason, worriedly telling his best friend that there were only a few chocolate puddings left. They were his favourite, and the only worthwhile dessert in their whole godforsaken dorm.

By the time they’d made it there, only one remained, and Liam had loudly proclaimed his relief to Mason, reaching forward for the snack—only for the guy ahead of him in line to snatch it, seconds before his fingers had been able to curl around it. The guy had smirked, told him that was too bad, if only he’d been a little taller, with a little longer reach.

Liam had instantly picked a fight, convinced the guy had only taken the last pudding because he’d overheard them talking about it. He’d called him a few unsavoury names, prompting the stranger to admit he didn’t even like chocolate, but it was going to taste that much sweeter if it was going to ruffle that many feathers.

Liam had ended up throwing his casserole at the guy. A _lima bean_ casserole that had made quite the mess, and gotten Liam banned from the dining hall for a week. His wallet had cried every day as he’d dragged his ass to campus to eat lunch and dinner, lucky that Mason was kind enough to buy him breakfast on the way to class.

“You!” He points an accusatory finger, mouth agape. “You’re…”

The smirk widens. “I believe the term you used last time was _chocolate-fucking cocksucker_?”

Liam’s face burns scarlet. Of course he remembers. _Of course._

“I—” Liam starts, lifting a hand to awkwardly rub at the back of his neck. His lips press together, unsure of how to push an apology past them. “I’ll admit I was a little harsh.”

The other guy shrugs. “It’s not like you were wrong.”

Liam lifts a brow, earning himself a snicker.

“About the thievery, not the obscene shit,” the guy tells him. “I did kind of take it to piss you off. You’d been waxing poetic about _pudding_ to your friend for several minutes and it was getting on my nerves.”

“Could’ve just told me to shut up,” Liam says bitterly, huffing out a breath through his nose.

“Would that have worked?” The guy looks genuinely amused, mirth sparkling in the green of his eyes. Against his better judgement, Liam feels a smile tugging at his lips.

“Probably not, no,” he shakes his head. “I just really wanted pudding, and it was sort of a long day.”

“You always get hangry, Lima Bean?”

This time, Liam scowls. “Dude,” he starts, because no matter how deep in his memories he searches, he doesn’t think he knows the guy’s name. “It’s Liam.”

“I’m dyslexic.” There’s that infuriating smirk again. Part of him really wants to hit the guy in the face, an urge that was growing stronger by the minute.

“This is… this is a verbal conversation,” Liam’s eyes narrow. His shoulders bunch up, the hand gripping his phone tightening until his knuckles turn white.

“Is it?” He arches one long, thin brow. “My mistake, Li- _am_.”

He blinks. Somehow he makes even his _name_ sound annoying. Liam scoffs, determined to stop letting him under his skin by simply ignoring the asshole. He sinks to the ground, perching himself on the raised foundation of the house and turning his attention to his phone.

He’s just finishing up the text to Mason and Nolan that has gotten erased when he dropped his phone when the guy speaks again. “Theo.”

Evidently not having learned his lesson, Liam looks up at the guy. He’s moved closer, in between Liam and the back door, and for the first time he notices a lighter in the guy’s hand. An old-school one, the kind you have to click open and closed. Like he’s doing right now. “What?”

“My name,” the guy says, and this time there’s a genuine smile on his lips. Well, Liam can only assume it’s genuine, anyway. “It’s Theo.”

There’s a soft click of the lighter, and then his free hand reaches out in greeting. Liam stares at it like it’s infected, maybe. Theo shrugs after a moment, the idle curiosity on his face vanishing for something he can’t quite decipher. Theo slides down the brick to join him.

“So, what brings you out here on such a fine night?” Theo asks, nodding his head back towards the house. “You strike me as the kind of guy that normally likes this sort of thing.”

The assumption doesn’t bother him much, because it’s fairly true. He’d been excited this week leading up to the party, and on the walk over from their dorm. It was one of the first big parties of sophomore year, and the first one where they were all supposed to be together. Of course, half the senior crew had bailed before the night began, and the rest had stuck to their own classmates once inside, leaving Liam and Mason with Nolan, who was here less for the music and booze and more for the _people_.

Remembering Theo had asked him a question, Liam shrugs. “Wasn’t feeling it anymore.” He pauses, then pockets his phone, turning his attention to the other boy. “You?”

 _Click-snap._ Liam’s eyes flicker to the lighter, drawn by the sound, and his mouth opens in an ‘o’ shape. Stupid question.

Theo notices the look and chuckles. “Avoiding an ex, actually.” _Click-snap._ “And big parties aren’t really my thing.”

“Oh,” Liam says, dragging his eyes from the lighter and up into the green ones currently boring into him. He doesn’t know what makes him say it. Maybe it’s the buzz still swirling in his head, maybe it’s the honesty written in flecks of gold and brown.  Either way, the words tumble from his lips unbidden. “So was I—avoiding an ex, I mean.”

This seems to surprise Theo, and it earns him a wide smile. “Full of surprises, aren’t you, Lima Bean?” He laughs when Liam’s face twists into a scowl. “Two cowardly peas in a pod.”

“I’m not a coward,” he huffs, crossing his arms.

“What’re you doing then, if you’re not _hiding_ out here?” Theo’s smirk is firmly back in place.

“Getting some air,” Liam says, and even to his ears it sounds weak. He clears his throat, pulling at the collar of his shirt as his earlier flush returns. “Her and her roommate were giving me _looks_.”

“Looks?” Theo raises a brow, obviously intrigued by the emphasis. He pauses with his lighter open, just after the _click_. His eyes trail over Liam as he tries to cool himself. “The kind of looks that put you in heat, or something?”

“What? No!” Liam coughs, feeling the blush spread up his neck and across his face. “The kind uh—the kind you give like, a steak that’s almost done cooking on the barbecue when you’re really hungry? Maybe?”

 _Snap!_ The lighter clamps shut and Theo erupts into loud, uproarious laughter. His arms wind around his stomach, barely holding it together as he throws his head back, the tips of his curled bangs flopping as his whole body moves. Irritation prickles at Liam’s skin, itching and scratching until he’s had enough.

He throws an elbow out, knocking into Theo’s ribs and almost bowling him over. He stumbles, still laughing, and scoots out of Liam’s reach. “I can’t believe,” he says, wheezing, “that you came out here to avoid a threesome with two hot girls!”

Liam’s sure every muscle in his face that could be used for scowling currently _is._ Despite that, he can feel a lightness in his chest, a laugh bubbling it’s way to the surface. He supposes it might be a little silly, from an outside perspective. He’s sure Nolan would’ve called him an idiot for bailing.

“Shut up!” He says, but this time there’s no vehemence. It’s half shout, half chuckle and Liam feels the rest of the discomfort and anger bleed away from him. “Like you’re any better! Let’s not forget you’re hiding out here too!”

That seems to sober Theo up, most of the raucous laughter fading from his voice by the time he speaks, mouth still curled with mirth. “That’s because I didn’t want to get punched tonight.” He glances sideways at Liam, snickering. “So much for that.”

Liam finds himself grinning. He opens his mouth to explain that he hasn’t punched him _yet_ when the screen door bangs open against the brick and out tumbles his best friend, followed closely by a giggling Nolan. Both are very clearly drunk. Mason looks around as soon as he’s stable, eyes and smile widening as he spots them. “Liam, there you are dude!”

“Right where I said I’d be,” Liam chuckles, shaking his head and moving to stand. He glances down at his watch and realizes he’s been out here longer than he thought; it’s after 1 AM already.

“Didn’t mention you weren’t alone, though,” Mason says in a voice that means trouble. Liam moves towards them, hoping to squash the train of thought he can see brewing in his best friend’s eyes as fast as possible.

One that disappears almost immediately, replaced by wide eyes and a gasp. “Liam!” Mason attempts to whisper, but in his drunkenness, it’s about as subtle as an air horn. “Is that pudding guy?!”

Liam winces. “Yes, now shut up.” He gently nudges his friend onwards, turning to Theo with a tentative smile. “Thanks for keeping me company, I guess. And being less terrible than I thought.”

“Anytime, Lima Bean,” Theo winks.

“Never mind,” Lima scowls, stomping away. “Still an asshole.”

Laughter fills the alley behind him as he turns his friends around, marching them towards the front of the house. Both attempt to shoot another glance back at the boy they left.

To his credit, Nolan at least waits until they’re out of earshot. “Did we interrupt something?” He waggles his eyebrows for emphasis.

“Uh, no. Definitely not,” Liam says, tone stilted.

“A shame,” Nolan sighs, waving an arm across the three of them dramatically as they start down the sidewalk, back towards campus and their dorm. “Then all three of us could’ve made out with an attractive boy tonight.”

Mason let’s loose a stream of giggles, arm hanging off Liam’s shoulder. “I’ll pass, thanks,” he says, patting his best friend on the back. “But I’m glad you two had fun.”

“Oh, _I_ did. Corey’s quiet, but super cute. He’s apparently in my psych class even though I don’t remember seeing him _and_ I got his numberrrr,” Mason grins, then nods towards Nolan, words spilling out around his laughter. “Nols, on the other hand…”

The rest of his sentence dissolves into barely contained giggling and Nolan turns red.

Liam frowns, turning his attention to the scrawny young man. “What happened? When you guys ditched me, you seemed pretty intent on sticking your tongue down someone’s throat.”

Something about making a point to someone, though he wouldn’t tell them who.

“That I did,” Nolan nods, his tone close to wistful. “Someone attractive, too. Unfortunately, also a dick. And not a whole lot going on up here?”

He taps two fingers against his temple, face displaying his disappointment. “The only thing he wanted to talk about was himself. His lacrosse scholarship, his eight pack abs, his track record—and yes, he meant it both as a metaphor _and_ actual athletics.”

Liam chuckles half-heartedly, shaking his head.  The words scratch at a long-buried itch, like an old sore tucked deep in the middle of his memories. “Man, that sounds just like my ex.”

Mason finally bursts, peals of laughter cascading out of him as he screeches to a halt. He releases his grip on Liam to double over, holding his stomach as hilarity pours of out him. Liam looks between his two friends, frowning, noticing how pale Nolan looks all of a sudden.

“That’s because,” Mason wheezes, dipping dangerously close to the ground, “it _was_ Brett!”

“What?” Liam frowns, voice carrying the timber of someone who’s very obviously getting punk’d. He looks for the  _gotcha!_ in Mason’s face, but his best friend is too busy cackling. It drops the moment he glances at Nolan, seeing his wide eyes and very obvious wince. “What?!”

“I didn’t know!” Nolan shouts, throwing his hands up at his sides, palms flat. He takes a wary step back. “I didn’t get his name, so I didn’t realize it was him! Not until Mason found me!”

Mason’s head tilts back, releasing a loud, echoing laugh into the air. “Oh, man!” A shaky hand rises to point at Nolan. “You should have seen their faces!”

The scrawny teen buries his face in his hands, digging his fingers into his fluffy, messy hair. “When I realized the fun wasn’t worth the the ego it was attached to I texted Mason to save me. I figured he’d like, call or something. Use the emergency line.”

“Really?” Liam raises a brow. “Not that he probably didn’t deserve the cliché, but…”

“I know,” Nolan mumbles into his palms. “Instead he came and found us.”

Liam watches the redness blossom on his friend’s neck and turns to snicker at Mason. “Did _you_ interrupt something?”

“Just a little foreplay, I think,” his best friend winks. “Brett looked mighty pissed until he realized who I was. Then he was even _more_ pissed. He thought we were pranking him.”

The image brings a smile to Liam’s lips. He claps them both on the back to get them moving again. They’re not far from their dorm now, and he can practically hear his bed calling his name. “Well,” he says, looking at Nolan, who’s blush hasn’t faded yet. “Was it worth the trouble, at least?”

He’d come with them tonight because he’d apparently heard someone was going to be there. Someone he wanted to make jealous, as far as Mason and Liam had figured. It was difficult, and they were kind of just assuming, since Nolan had remained stubbornly vague about the whole thing.

The younger boy sighs, hanging his head a little. “No. I don’t think they showed up.”

“Aw, man,” Mason shakes his head. “Bummer.”

“At least one of us had a good night,” Nolan smiles, and even in the dark they can see Mason blush.

Liam pictures laughing in the alley beside the house, pushing Theo over and smiles softly. He notices too late that Mason has spotted it, his best friend reaching forward to loop an arm around his shoulders.

“Maybe more than one of us, huh?” He whispers conspiratorially, winking. “Pudding guy’s cute, huh?”

“Shut up,” Liam chuckles, shaking his head and pushing Mason off him. That only earns him a laugh. “Dude, no!”

“Liam and pudding guy, sitting in a tree—”

“Oh my god,” Liam grumbles, dragging a hand over his face. “What are you, twelve?”

“K-I-S-S—“

Liam lunges, and Mason barely leaps out of reach, letting loose a horrified screech as he stumbles and almost eats it. The second he recovers, he takes off running, still singing as Liam gives chase. Nolan follows behind, laughing and shaking his head.


	2. January 28th, 2:12 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a second encounter that fares far better than the first, Liam doesn't really expect to come across Theo again. Certainly not in the dorm kitchen at 2AM while baking cookies.

2AM isn’t necessarily an odd time to be awake on a Saturday night (technically a Sunday at this point, he supposes), certainly not for a college student like Liam. He could be staying up late studying in the rec rooms of the dorm, or maybe drunk at a party off campus. Maybe even playing video games with his roommates, if they didn’t both have plans this weekend. Mason had gone back to Beacon Hills for some fancy campaign dinner of his mother’s, and Nolan had finally snagged his elusive mystery person. Or so Liam figured. He had been very vague when he’d left, but had told him not to wait up, throwing in a wink and an eyebrow waggle for good measure. 

So instead, Liam’s sitting on a stool in the communal dorm kitchen, eyes narrowed as he scrolls through the tenth recipe for chocolate chip cookies on his laptop. Every single one is different, with slight variations to the six or seven ingredients and measurements, and he thinks that this baking thing might actually be more confusing than his Economics class. Despite the fact that only the one is in French (he’s still not sure how he managed that), none of the recipes actually look like English to him. 

He doesn’t know how this happened to him, but he’s absolutely regretting every life choice that led him here. Befriending Mason as a child?  _Check._  Being introduced to Hayden at his best friend’s sixth birthday party?  _Check._  Being scared of her for five years after accidentally punching her on picture day?  _Check._  Becoming an enemies to lovers cliche senior year of high school and dating well into freshman year of college?  _Check._  

Agreeing to help her with a bake sale fundraiser this weekend for the physical therapy clinic she volunteers at despite knowing absolutely nothing about baking? Biggest checkmark of all. 

Yet here he sits, with a stash of recently purchased ingredients Mason had taken him to pick up before leaving for the weekend, and a laptop containing the gibberish that’s meant to help him put them all together to make something edible. Liam groans, leaning forward and banging his head on the countertop in frustration. This is like every nightmare he’s ever had after falling asleep watching  _Nailed It_ , except worse, because he can’t use the panic button to call a friend for help when all of them are busy with fancy dinners, or mystery dates, or weekend cottage getaways for Allison’s birthday. 

He groans again, feeling it vibrate through the countertop. “I’m such a fucking moron.” 

“Ouch, I feel self-loathing in this Chili’s tonight.” 

Liam’s head whips up at the sound of another person’s voice, narrowly avoiding smashing into his laptop, and he finds a familiar face standing in the doorway. Pudding guy— _Theo_ , he remembers, despite not having seen him since the party last week—is leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed and head tilted like he’s assessing him. Like maybe he has been, silently, for a little while. One eyebrow is raised in question and his lips are curved into a smirk. 

“Ugh,” Liam says loudly, wrinkling his nose. This is absolutely the last thing he needs right now. 

“Maybe just a general loathing, then,” Theo snickers, pushing off the frame and padding over. His feet are bare against the carpet, toes poking out of dark sweats that look far too large, pooling around his ankles. Which Liam is in no way staring at in order to avoid looking him in the eye, because he’s not feeling any sort of socializing where this guy is concerned. “Why the long face, Lima Bean?” 

Liam answers by slamming his forehead against the counter again. “The universe hates me, apparently. Why are you here?” 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Theo says, and Liam can tell he’s close by the sound of his voice. It’s slightly off to the right, where his ingredients are. “Wanted food that doesn’t require a flavor packet, but everything’s closed. You?” 

He groans, not trusting himself to form words. Judging the sounds of rustling packaging and soft, quiet laughter, Theo appears to be figuring it out for himself.  

“Not that I’m judging or anything, but are you baking at two-thirty in the morning?” 

“It sounds like you’re judging,” Liam points out. He lifts his head to see the other boy has indeed made his way over to rifle through the collection of ingredients. Now that he’s closer, Liam can see the bags under his eyes, the soft, disheveled curls of his messy hair and the Bruins logo clearly displayed on the hoodie he’s wearing. 

Theo shrugs. “Simple curiosity.” 

“That stuff’s dangerous, you know. To cats, at least,” Liam says, earning himself a snicker.  

“Glad to see you’ve found a sense of humour since I last saw you, Lima Bean.” 

“Liam,” he reminds him with a huff. He slouches forward, taking his hands through his already disheveled hair and glaring at his laptop screen. “And I’m  _trying_  to, but I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

“Really?” Theo sounds surprised. “It’s pretty easy.” 

Liam’s about to open his mouth and tell him off for making fun of him, but when he glances up, Theo’s got this weird, contemplative look on his face. He’s staring at the ingredients, assessing, and after a moment he shrugs, looking over at Liam with bright eyes. 

“I can help, if you want.” 

“You know how to bake?” It’s Liam’s turn to sound surprised, and he tries his damndest not to sound impressed, too. He doesn’t think he manages it very well.  

Theo shrugs again, like it’s no big deal. The hope flaring in Liam’s chest feels like it’s quite the opposite. “My sister taught me. She loves it.” 

Liam blinks. He has a sister? “Younger or older?” 

The question earns him a smirk. “What’s the matter? Afraid someone who got taught by a twelve year old’s about to school your ass?” Theo circles the counter, coming to stand to Liam’s right, where he reaches to turn on the oven with a few rapid button presses and beeps. Liam catches sight of the RAEKEN lettering on the back of what he now realizes is a  _varsity_ hoodie, along with the number 83. It strikes a familiar chord, but he can’t quite place it.  

Faced with his growing silence, Theo ends up throwing a grin over his shoulder. “She’s older, for the record.” 

“I wasn’t—I mean…” Liam trails off, feeling heat in his face as Theo laughs. He mutters  _dick_  under his breath and turns his attention back to his laptop and the multiple tabs he has open. “Alright, which one of these stupid things do I pick?” 

Theo approaches, and there’s warmth at Liam’s shoulder when he leans over it to look at the screen. He realizes then that he might be slightly taller. Theo hums a moment, clicking through the tabs and glancing at the collected things on the counter, before he doubles back. “That one.” 

To Liam, it looks exactly like the other nine, but whatever. He closes out the rest of the tabs, then swivels in his seat to see Theo pulling a large bowl from the cupboard, as well as tiny cups with handles. He reaches for the flour, and coughs when it opens in a shower of powder, then turns a questioning look on Liam. “You gonna join me, Lima Bean, or you just gonna sit there and admire the help?” 

“Nothing to admire,” he grumbles, slipping from the stool to stand. He motions at all the baking ingredients. “I don’t know where to start, so if you’d like to offer some direction, Mr. Miyagi.” 

_Two can play at that nickname game,_ Liam thinks with a snicker. Theo blinks, momentarily taken aback. He recovers quickly, and points at one of the cups. “Fill the one that says one cup with chocolate chips.” 

Liam nods, padding over to follow his instructions. They work in tandem for a little while, Liam measuring out ingredients, and Theo mixing them together in the large bowl, keeping an eye on the oven. Baking powder, sugar, even a few drops of what appears to be vanilla, despite it being a dark liquid Liam hadn’t anticipated. Eventually he takes over the mixing, while Theo sets up the baking sheet with foil. 

“So, why  _are_ you baking cookies at this time of night?” Theo asks. 

Liam winces. He had a feeling the question would come eventually. He’d planned on just telling him he was in the mood for chocolate chip, but given the almost comfortable, companionable silence they’ve been working in so far, occasionally trading barbs and quips, he finds himself telling the truth. “I offered to help a friend with a bake sale. I was supposed to have made these already, before my roommates bailed on me for the weekend but uh, I sort of forgot?” 

“You mean I’ve done all this work and I’m not even gonna get to eat them?” There’s a whine to the words, but Liam can see from the teasing grin on Theo’s face that he’s not serious. 

Still, he plays along, shaking his head and feigning an angry scoff. “I  _knew_ you weren’t helping me out of the goodness of your heart.” 

A beat, and then they’re both laughing.  

Theo returns to his side, pulling the bowl from his hands and spooning out the mixture on to the sheet. He goes slowly, so Liam can see what he’s doing and then copy the motion. It looks fairly simple, so he doesn’t think he can mess it up. He hopes, anyway. 

He ends up flinging the first one so hard it splatters dough all over the front of his sweater. Theo laughs himself nearly to tears, and Liam has to take it off before continuing.  

“So your sister taught you to bake?” He asks on his third blob. 

There’s the smallest pause in the taller boy’s motions, so brief that Liam almost misses it. He probably would have, had the arm that stalled not been gliding past his elbow, just barely touching him. “Yeah,” he nods, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, she taught me while I was home one summer. She picked it up when we were young, to pass the time. She’s kind of got a lot of it.” 

Liam frowns, not sure what that means, or if he’s supposed to ask. If it’s even polite to ask when the comment sounds purposely vague. Unfortunately, he pauses long enough for Theo to notice, and the taller boys lets out a sigh, reaching to take the spoon from Liam and dab the last blob of dough onto the sheet.  

He drops it back into the empty bowl, then turns away to open the oven. He waves Liam back with an oven mitt, and he obliges, backtracking all the way around the counter to the other side. He picks the stool opposite his laptop, spinning it around, but his eyes never leave Theo, who’s now working quietly. Once he closes the oven door behind the baking sheet, he places his hands on the stove top, palms flat, and sighs. Liam can see the tension in his shoulders, even from where he’s sitting. Pressure builds in his chest, in his lungs, and suddenly, the words tumble out of him with haste. 

“If it’s not something you want to talk about, it’s cool,” he squeaks out, voice small. “I shouldn’t have asked.” 

The other boys is silent for a moment before he straightens, crossing his arms as he turns to lean against the oven. There’s a soft smile on his lips, but to Liam it looks sort of sad. “She’s sick,” he says finally. “She has been for most of my life.” 

“Oh,” Liam says gently. Now he really feels like a jerk. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” Theo shrugs. He seems very nonchalant about it. “She’s getting better every day, with treatment. But she has to stay home, so she there’s a lot of stuff she misses out on, and a lot of hobbies she works her way through. Baking though, that’s her favourite. She’s always dreamed of opening up a bakery one day.” 

The quiet, gentle way Theo’s words paint a picture of his sister surprises Liam in a way that’s unexpected. It brings a warm smile to his lips as he listens to the other boys talk of her, a fond brightness in his eyes and face.  

“She sounds pretty cool,” Liam says softly, when Theo falls silent. He mirrors Liam’s smile, nodding. 

“Yeah, she is.” He clears his throat, the moment passing as he straightens up and fixes Liam with lopsided grin. “You got any siblings, Lima Bean?” 

Liam scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck. “An older sister, too. But she lives in Scotland with my dad, so I don’t see her much.” 

“Oh?” Theo‘s head tilts slightly as he examines him, and his face settles into a thoughtful frown. “You don’t sound Scottish, though.” 

“Good ear,” Liam laughs, swivelling on his stool a little. “Mom’s from California, and I was born and raised here. Todd—uh, my birth dad—he split and took my sister there when I was pretty young. I see them once a year, sometimes twice if I’m lucky.” 

“Ah. That’s shitty.” 

“Yeah. I mean at least video chat is a thing, I guess.” Liam shrugs. 

He doesn’t usually like talking about it much, but he feels kind of at ease telling a relative stranger about it. Normally he gets pitying looks or drawn-out silences from people he knows, that he’s grown close to, because it’s like this Big Thing that he doesn’t talk about, and resolutely ignores, and some people find it awkward to listen to. Theo doesn’t seem to feel that way, at least. 

“It’s the same for me, kind of,” he says hesitantly. His one hand is fisted in the fabric of his shirt, tucked neatly beneath his bicep, seeing as his arms are still crossed. “My dad’s not in the picture anymore either.” 

“I’m sorry?” Liam says, because he doesn’t know what else he  _can_ say.  

“Don’t be. He’s an asshole.” There isn’t any bitterness in his voice, like he’s long since moved past it.  

Despite that, Liam watches a sort of shadow pass over Theo’s face, green eyes fixed at a spot on the counter, rather than Liam himself. The silence is nearly as deafening as the fluorescent lights, and it would put him on edge if it weren’t for the comforting smell of baking cookies that’s wrapping itself around them.  

Eventually, though, Liam cracks. “Theo?” 

It snaps him out of it. The strange trance he fell into momentarily seems to fall away as he shudders and looks up at Liam. “Yeah. Sorry, it’s late.” He blinks a handful of times.  

“You can go if you want,” Liam tells him. “I’m sure I can handle taking them out of the oven without supervision.” 

“So soon? Pretty sure that requires at least another level in baking before you get to fly solo, Lima Bean,” Theo snickers. He unfolds his arms, reaching up to run a hand through hair. “But I get it, unlocking the tragic backstory this early can be a little daunting. I’ll understand if you wanna quit now.” 

Liam barks out a laugh, expelling the awkward tension in his shoulders along with it. The video game references are a nice touch, and do wonders to put them both back at ease. “I guess we did kind of do this in reverse,” Liam points out. “Normally when you make a new friend in college you start with names, hometowns, and maj—” 

Theo holds up a hand, shaking his head. “Nope. I hate that. I hate that  _everyone_  does that. Feels robotic, y’know? Like you’re listing your rank and serial number.” 

“You don’t want to know where people are from?” Liam chuckles. “Or what they’re studying?” 

“Fuck no,” Theo says around a laugh. His smirk makes a reappearance for the first time in awhile. “Majors come with stereotypes. Pre-meds are stuck up and boring. Elementary eds are in it for the Mrs. degree. Psychs and Philosophers are just stoners with good grades. I’d rather form my own opinions.” 

Liam drums his fingers on the counter thoughtfully. “Hmm, guess I’d never thought of it that wa—” 

_Beep. Beep. Beep._  

The last syllable of his sentence is cut off by the timer sounding, a shrill beep amongst the buzz of fluorescent lights up above. Liam’s eyes widen, and he nearly slips from his stool in his panic to get up. On the other side of the counter, Theo waves him off, shaking his head. “It’s cool, Lima Bean, I got it.” 

Liam carefully lowers himself back to the stool, scowling as Theo slips on an oven mitt and approaches the oven. He reminds himself to be grateful for the guy’s help, no matter how annoying the nickname that apparently isn’t going anywhere soon happens to be. Theo swings it open, casually ignoring the screeching timer as he busies himself with sliding the baking tray out.  

_Beep. Beep. Beep._  

It clatters lightly against the stove top, and Liam watches in agony as Theo closes the door with his hip, slowly pulling the mitt off and inspecting them, still ignoring the ongoing timer. 

Liam can almost feel his eye twitch, and realizes in that moment, with the cookies physically in sight and the smell of chocolate chip heaven wafting into his nose, just how  _hungry_  he is. Without thinking, he reaches out to grab one—and ends up being swatted away with an oven mitt for his troubles.  

“Hey!” He says, the shrill word almost on beat with the oven timer. He throws Theo an offended look, but it’s met with nothing more than a casual smirk. Thankfully, he leans back and presses a button to quiet the godforsaken beeping. 

“They need to cool, dumbass. Unless you like burning yourself,” Theo chuckles, half-heartedly waving the oven mitt over the steaming delicacies. His eyes give Liam a once-over, and he shrugs. “I won’t judge if you’re into that.” 

Liam opens his mouth to tell Theo he  _isn’t_ , thank you very much, but he’s interrupted mid-huff by a sudden buzz. His eyes flicker down to his phone, sitting beside his laptop and slowly skittering across the counter thanks to an incoming call. It’s face down, so he can’t see who it is. He watches it go, frowning but not moving to pick it up. It is, after all, very late. 

“You gonna get that?” Theo asks. 

For the second time, Liam goes to answer him, but resigns quickly. He picks up his phone, and his eyes widen when the screen lights up to display Scott’s face and name. He taps to accept, bringing the phone up to his ear. “Scott?” 

No greeting, no formalities, just a quick and quiet concern. If Scott was calling him at nearly three-thirty in the morning, then something was wrong. Especially when the last he’d heard from him or any of the group that had gone to Derek’s cottage for the weekend was that they’d been drunk and happy. 

_“Hey, Liam,”_  the older boys says, a soft cheer to his voice. He sounds like he’s whispering, or maybe sleepy.  _“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”_  

“Nah, wide awake.” 

_“Oh, good. And you’re at school, right?”_  

“Yeah, of course. What’s up?” He notices Theo watching him then, and feels sort of strange about it, almost like he’s intruding, even though he’s sure the guy can’t hear Scott’s side of the conversation. Liam turns away to grant himself a smidge of privacy, the feeling that something is indeed wrong growing in the pit of his stomach. 

_“You know those motion sensors Stiles set up in the apartment because he’s, well, Stiles? The one at the front door just went off.”_  

Liam straightens, hair on the back of his neck raising. “Oh, shit.” 

_“Yeah. The camera hasn’t picked anything up because it’s too dark, but the front door is still open.”_  There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, and he can hear muffled voices, like Scott’s covered the phone to debate something with one of the others. He sounds a little more awake when he returns.  _“We were wondering if you could go check it out for us?”_  

“Uh, I guess,” Liam nods slowly, confusing blossoming into a frown. “But wouldn’t Isaac or Boyd be a better shot? They live across the hall.” 

_“Boyd and Erica had date night, so Allison says they’re probably at the house. And I already tried calling Isaac. He was, uh, busy.”_  

“Busy?” Liam asks and hears Scott awkwardly clear his throat over the phone.  

_“Occupied? Sock on the door style?”_  

“Oh.” His eyes widen, and he inhales sharply. “Oh!” 

_“Yeah…”_ Liam can distinctly hear female laughter on the other end, and realizes he must be on speakerphone.  

“Man,” he gripes, “am I the only one  _not_  getting laid this weekend?” 

He hears a choking noise behind him, and whips around to see Theo thumping on his chest with one hand, half a cookie held in the other. Liam turns bright red almost instantly, having sort of forgotten the other boy was there. The moment they lock eyes, he ducks his head, feeling the heat creep across his whole neck and face. 

_“...Liam?”_  His ears pick up Scott’s confused voice, and he realizes this isn’t the first time he’s called him.  _“You still there, dude?”_  

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I’m here!” He babbles, pressing the heel of his palm tightly against the middle of his forehead. “You want me to go take a look?” 

_“If it’s not too much trouble! You still have a spare?”_  

Liam fishes his key ring out of his pocket, tossing them in his palm until he spots the newest-looking one. Scott had gifted it to him at Christmas, saying that even though they’d only known each other since the start of his freshman year, when he’d taken Liam under his wing soon after the young boy had joined the varsity lacrosse team, they were as close as brothers. And y’know, he wanted an emergency contact that wasn’t his girlfriend.  

For moments like these, apparently. 

“Of course,” Liam nods, lips curving into a small smile despite Scott being unable to see either motion. “I’ll let you know what I find.” 

_“Thanks, dude! You’re the best.”_  

“I know,” he says cheerfully, earning himself a warm laugh on the other end. He hears Allison’s soft  _thank you, Liam_  before they hang up. 

He looks up to see Theo has finished the cookie he’d nearly choked on, and that another was missing from the sheet. He scowls at the other boy. “Hey! What gives?” 

“I was hungry,” Theo offers him a shrug, and a half-smile that looks nowhere near as apologetic as it should. He reaches for another, and Liam leans forward to slap his hand before he can snag it. “Ow! What was that for?” 

“You owe me two dollars already,” he gripes. “Either pay up, or keep your sticky fingers to yourself.” 

“ _Someone’s_  touchy,” Theo snorts, brushing the cookie crumbs off on his sweats. He nods his head towards Liam’s phone, now facedown on the counter once more. “What was that about?” 

“You’re very direct, aren’t you?” Liam points out, snapping his laptop shut and shoving it into his bag. He throws in the history textbook he’d brought with him, fully intending to work on his essay while the cookies baked, and the stack of sticky notes he’d been planning on using to mark pages with. He pauses, hand hovering over his hoodie, remembering that there’s cookie dough on it, before shrugging and stuffing it in anyway. It’s inside out, so the offending substance probably won’t touch anything else. Probably. 

“I find it saves time.” 

For some reason, the words draw Liam’s eyes to the block on the microwave, just over Theo’s shoulder.  _3:45_.  

He sighs, dragging him gaze back to the other boy. He chews his bottom lip thoughtfully, mulling over the question inching ever closer to the tip of his tongue. Technically, it isn't any of Theo’s business, and he’d tried to keep things private by obscuring his phone call, but it  _is_ nearly four in the morning, and Scott’s apartment building  _is_  a bit of a distance from campus. 

Fuck it. 

“You feel up for a walk?” Liam asks. 

Theo’s lips curve upwards hesitantly, in tandem with one eyebrow. “A walk?” 

“A buddy of mine is out of town, and his place might’ve gotten broken into. I said I’d check it out, since I’m still up and the closest.” 

There’s a mischievous twinkle in Theo’s eyes. “And the only one not getting laid.” 

Liam presses his lips together tightly, inhaling through his nose. “Yes. And that.” 

“Sure, why not. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.” Theo shrugs, pushing off the oven and coming around the counter to stand opposite him. “Let me just grab some shoes first?” 

Liam glances down, remembering that the other boy is indeed barefoot. “Oh. Right!” He pockets his phone, then reaches for the cookie tray, thanking his lucky stars that it’s cooled enough to handle without a mitt. “I gotta drop this off in my room, anyway.” 

He doesn’t know what he expects as they exit the kitchen, but it certainly isn’t for Theo to turn in the same direction as him. And it definitely isn’t for him to pull to a stop only a few doors before his own. Liam wonders how they’ve never crossed paths before despite living so close, but figures it’s probably a matter of timing. Different class times and schedules, or something. 

As Theo slides his key into the lock and swings his door open, Liam stands there momentarily horrified as it crashes into the wall next to him. He isn’t being even remotely quiet, stomping around the dorm and flicking on lights everywhere he goes.  

“It’s cool,” Theo says, no doubt seeing the look on Liam’s face as the shorter boy glances warily at the closed door that presumably belongs to the guy’s roommate. If he wasn’t rudely awoken by all the noise, then he was probably having the worst nightmare ever. “He sleeps like the dead. Slept through a car crash once, apparently.” 

Liam winces. “What about the people downstairs?” 

“Assholes,” Theo throws a small smirk over his shoulder, disappearing into his room. Liam pauses, knowing full well he could just continue on to his room to drop off the cookies, getting them out of here faster. Then, his curiosity wins out. 

Slowly, carefully, he steps further into the dorm, past the entrance and washroom, and over to the doorway to Theo’s room. He pokes his head inside to take a look. There’s a collection of textbooks stacked high on his desk, and the walls are plastered with posters for bands, a few of which Liam recognizes. Theo seems to notice him hovering there, eyes roaming, because he lets out a chuckle. “You can come in, you know.” 

Liam’s gaze snaps back to him and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other a little awkwardly. “I… I’m fine here.” 

“Suit yourself,” Theo shrugs. Perching himself on the corner of his mattress, he pulls his socks on one at a time, still speaking without looking up. “I don’t bite, I promise. You’re just standing there awkwardly, and I feel bad. But I get it. For all you know, I could be an axe murderer, or something.” 

A smile tugs at his lips as Theo slips on sneakers. “I feel it’s unlikely for  _both_  of us to be axe murderers,” Liam jokes, earning himself a loud laugh. 

“You’re alright, Lima Bean,” Theo grins, standing up. Liam takes that as his cue, and moves back towards the front entrance. “A lot less tightly wound than I initially thought.” 

He scoffs as Theo locks his door. “Well I’m not pre-med, so.” 

Liam walks the dozen or so feet to his dorm, and hears a snort close behind him. “But you are almost my neighbor, apparently.” 

“Yeah,” Liam huffs. “Who knew?” 

He unlocks his door and steps inside, being far more discreet than Theo had been. He knows neither of his roommates are home, so he doesn’t feel quite so bad when the cookie tray clatters a little louder than expected on the table, his keys jingling against wood and aluminium. He pads over to his room, flicking on the light as he goes, bathing his room in a warm glow. 

And instantly illuminating the whirlwind of crap covering his floor. Clothes, both dirty and clean. A mostly eaten box of pizza and empty pop cans from his weekly movie night with Mason on Friday. A textbook so filled with colored tabs the pages are barely visible. It’s such a stark contrast to the room he’d just been to that he panics. 

He lets out a shrill “Gah!” and slams his hand over the light switch, blanketing his room in darkness just as quickly. He tosses his backpack blindly in the general direction of his bed, hearing the  _whump_  as it lands safely, and turns on his heel, blocking as much of the doorway as possible. “Okay! Let’s go!” 

To his credit, Theo says nothing, but he doesn’t need to when the light snicker he looses speaks volumes. Liam ignores it, strolling past him, face burning as he all but races out of his dorm room. The taller boy follows, and Liam slams the door shut behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _shakes my sheets of backstory at you_ hello yes hi


	3. January 28th, 4:01 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam answers a distress call from Scott, who thinks his and Stiles' apartment might've been broken into. Figuring his night can't get any weirder after baking cookies with Theo at 3AM, he asks him to tag along. And a good thing, too...

“So, where are we headed?” Theo asks, falling into step beside him as they exit their residence, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. “I’m assuming off campus.”

“Not far,” Liam answers. “Scott and Stiles live in the Westwood Apartments.”

One of Theo’s shoes scrapes loudly against the pavement, and he skips a beat, falling back a step. Liam glances at him and swears he sees a perturbed frown flicker across the other boy’s face, but it disappears so fast he thinks maybe he imagined it. “You okay?”

“Fine.” The word is tight around the edges.

He sounds a little off, but Liam doesn’t think to ask why. He’s far too concerned with just how fucking _cold_ it is all of a sudden. He hisses a little as the crisp 4AM air nips at his skin, and realizes that he didn’t replace his cookie dough sweater before they’d left, like an idiot.

“They’re juniors,” he finds himself saying, just to fill the silence around them. As they near the edge of campus, they’re forced to pause as a car zips by the main street, even at this hour. “Scott’s on the lacrosse team, like me, and Stiles is his best friend.”

When he glances over, Theo’s nose is wrinkled slightly. “Sorry,” he laughs, rubbing at his arms as they cross the street. “That probably falls under your rank and serial number thing, doesn’t it?”

This seems to draw him out of his haze, because he huffs out a little laugh. “Nah, I knew you were varsity. You were wearing one of these at the party.” He taps his sweater, just over the Bruins logo on his chest.

Liam reddens. “Oh, right!”

“I just didn’t know what team,” Theo smiles faintly. “But I knew it couldn’t be football.”

“Oh!” Liam says again, eyes widening. “Is that what you play?”

He knows the answer, of course. Because suddenly the number and the name flash across his mind in a brightly lit stadium, with a cheering crowd of college kids. Liam hasn’t been to many football games, but Mason’s dragged him to enough that he knows who their star quarterback is.

Theo nods, scratching at the back of his neck. He looks a tad awkward, and when he speaks, his words sound like they’ve been forced out. “Yeah, I got a scholarship. It’s kind of the only reason I’m here.”

He clears his throat, and the tension seems to shake out of him. “My roommate’s a lacrosse player, though.”

“Really? Who?”

“Corey Bryant,” Theo says, pulling his hands from his pants pockets. He opens and closes them once twice, almost three times, as if gripping an invisible force, or maybe itching for something, before he slides the right one into his hoodie. Liam can hear a faint rustling. “Number 1?”

Liam frowns, trying to put a face to the familiar name and jersey. “I...think he’s a backup goalie?”

The other boy nods. “He kind of flies under the radar off the field because he’s real quiet, but he’s good. Like scholarship good. You guys should give him a shot his year.”

Liam lifts his brows, surprised. He’d known there was another lacrosse scholarship winner amongst the sophomores, but he hadn’t realized it was Corey. Mainly because he hasn’t talked to the guy all that much. Quiet was a bit of an understatement, Liam sometimes thought the guy was invisible. But he can vaguely picture him freshman season—he’d been a pretty good defender, if he remembers right.

“I’ll talk to Scott,” he says. “Season’s starting next week, and he’s captain this year, so he’ll have a little bit more to do with the lineup.”

“Cool.” Theo’s voice sounds strangely muffled. Liam glances over and notices there’s a thin white stick jutting from the corner of his mouth. A crinkling noise draws his eyes downwards, and he catches sight of a bright red wrapper being stuffed into the pocket of Theo’s hoodie.

“Is that a lollipop?”

He’s answered by a softly hummed _mhmm_. “Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings, or whatever.” When Liam’s only response is a confused frown, he elaborates. “I used to smoke. Quit last year because I got in shit with Coach, and my sister.”

“But,” Liam enunciates slowly, “you had a lighter last week at the party? I thought that’s why you were outside.”

“It’s a nasty fucking habit,” Theo nods, reaching into his sweats and returning with the silver lighter he’d been playing with last time. “Hard to kick. Sometimes the urge still strikes, like when I’m out late at night, walking or drinking. The key is keeping my hands and mouth busy.”

Liam snorts. He can’t help it. He sees the corner of Theo’s lips curve up, clearly having caught on. “The lighter’s a reminder, and the little tic you saw keeps me from scratching the itch. Unfortunately, it’s annoying as fuck for other people, so I substitute with candy as well, mostly gum or lollipops.”

“Oh.” It surprises him, in a way, that Theo’s being this open with him despite barely knowing him—especially given their first meeting. But the more he listens to the guy talk, the more he thinks that’s just who Theo is. Candid without remorse or care for how others see him.

It’s sort of refreshing.

“You want one?” Theo asks, because he’s still staring. He snaps out of it, cheeks darkening and nodding.

“Depends. You got grape?” Liam’s tone is hopeful despite the fact that _no one_ ever does. It was always tossed out, or forgotten at the bottom of a bag, or maybe saved for the people you disliked most—because it was the flavour everyone disliked most.

Theo blinks at him. “Uh, yeah. I think so.” He slips a hand into his right hoodie pocket, glancing down at squinting in the dark. A split second later, he produces a small, purple-wrapped candy, and holds it outwards in offering.

Liam grins from ear to ear. “Thanks!” He swipes it from Theo’s fingers, tearing the wrapper off in delight. It’s not until he’s shoved the candy into his mouth that he notices the strange expression the taller boy is looking at him with. “What?”

“You...like grape.” Theo says, and it doesn’t sound like a question. More like a horrified statement. The lollipop stick hangs loosely between his lips.

“Yes?”

“ _Why_? It tastes like cough syrup and broken dreams, dude.” His face remains serious, and tone flat despite how dramatic his words are. It causes Liam to burst into a fit of laughter that echoes off the building coming up in front of them, hard enough that his eyes begin to water.

“It’s _grape_ , not _cyanide_!” Liam dabs at the corner of his eyes with the palm of his hand. When his vision clears, they’re just approaching the entrance to his friends’ apartment building. It’s illuminated by a vibrant spotlight, like a beacon drawing them forward. He picks up the pace slightly, craving the warmth of the welcoming lobby.

They’re three feet from the door when he reaches into his pocket for his keys and screeches to an unceremonious halt. As his whole body locks up tightly, his jaw clamps downwards, and he shatters the grape lollipop where it rests in the corner of his mouth.

“Whoa!” Theo’s breath ghosts over the back of Liam’s neck as he nearly collides with him, stepping out of the way at the last second. He stumbles a bit, twisting around to give Liam a confused look, hands raised in a _what gives_ motion. “Why’d you stop, Lima Bean?”

“We have a problem.” The words are thick around the shards of grape candy in his mouth. He gathers them with his tongue, melting them down before swallowing them. He pulls the empty stick from his lips, pouting as he tosses it into the metal garbage can by the building entrance.

Theo, meanwhile, looks around, out into the darkness and through the building lobby as though the problem will simply manifest itself. As though Liam’s seen something. When he glances back, confused frown on his features, the shorter boy’s shoulders are already hunched in a guilty shrug. He pulls his hands from his pockets, turning them inside out.

It takes a moment, but he sees it click in Theo’s eyes, which widen briefly before narrowing at him. “You’re kidding me.”

“I threw them on the front table with the cookies, and then… forgot them on our way out.” He feels heat rising on the back of his neck, and wants to bury his face in his hands in embarrassment. Still, he holds Theo’s gaze.

“Forgot them,” Theo echoes, raising one unimpressed brow. There’s the ghost of something dangerous and irritating forming on his lips. He tilts his head, and Liam knows he’s in trouble. “Because you were freaked out I’d see your disaster of a room?”

Aaaand there’s the full smirk.

The heat spreads from Liam’s neck to the tips of his ears, and his mouth flaps open and closed unattractively, rather like a fish. “I—you—”

Theo laughs. “It’s cool, Lima Bean. You’re a college kid who plays varsity lacrosse. You’re allowed to have a messy room.”

His brow scrunches downwards into a scowl. “I’m not a kid. I just turned nineteen.”

A hint of a smile graces the taller boy’s lips, and he backtracks away from the building, throwing over his shoulder: “I’m twenty-one.”

Liam’s eyes widen, eyelids fluttering as he processes the casual statement. His mouth silently forms the words _twenty-one?_ before his feet and brain catch up, and he gives chase. He follows Theo around the side of the building. “Twenty-one?”

It’s darker back here, but not so dark that he can’t make out the shape of the taller boy standing a few feet ahead of him, staring up at the building. Liam catches up quickly, cheeks and ears red and burning from being out in the early morning cold this long. His arms are crossed behind his head, the moonlight hitting his face, highlighting the shadows of stubble across his jawline. The stick of his lollipop hangs from between his lips like an unlit cigarette.

He opens his mouth to repeat the question, but Theo gets there first.

“It’s an old building. There’s a fire escape.”

“There’s a—what?” Liam nearly stumbles. The conversation is moving far too quickly for his 4AM brain, and the curve balls are far from appreciated. He spins, following Theo’s line of sight. The building looms above them, somehow intimidating in the darkness. But still, he can see the thin outline of the metal fire escape weaving up the side of it.

Right up to Scott and Stiles’ little balcony on the seventh floor. “Huh. And so there is.” He follows it down, but finds that it doesn’t reach the pavement. Instead, the ladder stops several feet above it, far higher off the ground than either of them. “But we can’t reach it.”

“I’ll boost you up.” Theo says it so nonchalantly that Liam’s almost sure he’s kidding. But then the taller—older?—boy starts towards the fire escape, and Liam’s heart plummets into his stomach. The metal structure looks rickety, daunting in it’s height, and he’d bet the entire lackluster contents of his bank account on the fact that it was probably rusty, too. He wasn’t even sure he could reach the bottom rung of the ladder with Theo’s help.

“C’mon, Lima Bean,” the teasing tone draws his gaze back down, to where Theo stands beneath the ladder, fingers locked together to form a step, legs bent slightly at the knee. His grin stretches ear to ear, the whiteness of his teeth sticking out in the dark. “I won’t drop you. I promise.”

He blinks, looking between Theo and the ladder. Once, twice, then glancing all the way back up to the seventh floor apartment and back. His eyebrows rise all the way into his hairline.

“Are you—are you suggesting we _break_ in?” Liam exclaims, voice pitching higher.

Theo shrugs. “I mean, someone already has, right?”

“Yeah, through the _front_ door!” Liam doesn’t budge, hands on his hips.

“Do you want to walk all the way back to get your keys?” Theo snorts.

“Not really.”

“So then we’re doing this.” Liam makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat, and it’s answered with the raising of an unimpressed brow. “You got a better idea? Your friends asked you to check on their shit. Technically, you’re still doing what they asked.”

“Yeah, but illegally,” Liam sighs, accepting his fate and walking over to Theo. Even in the dark, he sees the echo of that infuriating smirk brewing just below the surface. It reminds him of his earlier distress. He lifts his foot into Theo’s hands, placing his hands on broad shoulders, and narrows his eyes. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about like, two minutes ago. By the way.”

“Two minutes ago?” He tilts his head, looking up at Liam. There’s an innocent frown on his face, but the moonlit mischievous glitter in his green eyes speaks volumes.

“Who the fuck drops a bomb like _I’m twenty-one_ on someone and then walks away?”

Theo huffs out a laugh, breath visible in the cold air. “My birthday was last week, so I’m probably like, barely a year older. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“It’s not,” Liam says, shaking his head. He’s the same age as Allison, give or take a few days. “I just thought you were a sophomore, that’s all.”

Theo’s half-smile is a little forced. “I am.”

Okay, now he’s really confused. “What?” The word comes out alongside a snort. “You don’t strike me as one of those take a year off to travel after graduation types.”

Now it’s Theo’s turn to chuckle. “I’m not. Look, can we discuss this in a minute, once we’re on the fire escape? My arms are getting tired.”

Liam looks down, sees his foot held tightly between Theo’s fingers and realizes they’re still mid-boost. The blood rushes immediately to his face, heating and probably turning bright red. “Right! Of course!”

He steadies himself, then presses his weight against Theo’s shoulders, lifting himself up. It takes him a moment, and he wobbles a little, but then he feels fingers grip tightly at his ankles, and he can settle. Theo’s voice drifts up to him. “You good?”

Liam swallows. He’s hesitant to speak, or move or do anything that could throw him off balance and take them both out. So he simply hums a _mhmm_ and reaches for the last rung of the ladder above his head.

It takes a few tugs to knock it loose, and the longer he stays up there, the more off balance he feels. Just when he’s ready to admit defeat, declare that the ladder is too old and too rusted to budge, it comes loose. With a loud squeak and a nasty grinding noise, it slides open and crashes to the ground in front of him.

“Nice job, Lima Bean!” Theo claps him happily on the back of one calf. “Now c’mon down.”

He helps Liam off his shoulders, patting him on the back once his feet are firmly planted on the ground once more. At least for a few moments, anyway. He barely has the time to breathe before Theo starts climbing, and he scrambles to follow.

They’re three floors up when Theo pauses on a platform, turning back to watch Liam finish ascending the stairs. He frowns. “What’s up?

“I don’t know where I’m going,” Theo motions up the next set of stairs with one hand. “I figured you could take the lead.”

So they swap, and Liam’s nerves settle a little. With someone at his back instead of the open staircase and cold air, he doesn’t feel as off balance on the rickety fire escape. He leads the way up the criss-crossing steps, up and up to the seventh floor, where he comes to a stop in front of the window he’s pretty certain leads to Scott and Stiles’ living room. They’ve used it once or twice to crawl out onto the fire escape and hang out.

He sticks his face against the glass, trying to peer inside. It’s too dark to make anything out, but he can see a sliver of light coming from the front door, meaning it _is_ open. “Shit.” He reaches out, trying to slide the window up, knowing full well it probably won’t work. He’s sure it locks from the inside.

Sure enough, it barely budges.

He turns to tell Theo this, and finds him leaning back against the railing, arms crossed, his grin almost blinding in the darkness. “Climb wasn’t so bad, right?”

Liam ignores the question, pointing at the window. “It’s locked.”

“Well of course it is,” Theo says. “Otherwise anyone could just climb on in.”

He scowls. “How are we supposed to get in, then?” He holds up a hand, stopping the other boy from answering him. “We’re not breaking the window, or anything.”

“Of course not—that would be illegal.” The smirk that blooms across the older boy’s lips is accompanied by a casual wink.

Liam’s not sure if the pounding of his heart in his ears is caused by the increasingly ridiculous boy in front of him, the cold, or the fact that they’re about to commit a felony. Theo, however, looks as effortlessly calm and collected as ever.

“Leave that to me.” He pushes off the railing, stepping around Liam to get to the window. He crouches in front of it, running his fingers along the frame, following the motion with his eyes. It looks calculated, smooth, _practiced._

The words tumble out of Liam’s mouth before he can think to stop them. “Have you done this before?”

Theo freezes, hand halfway up the window. The briefest of shadows darken his face before he schools it into a neutral expression. Liam only notices because he’s paying such close attention, pulse thundering beneath his skin.

He takes a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh before he speaks. “Kind of. I’ve been to juvie once or twice.”

And there it is. The thing about him that’s so infinitely captivating. He’s been so direct and blunt and nonchalant in all their conversations so far that Liam doesn’t know if he’s being serious or not. The look on his face doesn’t resemble someone who’s kidding around, and Liam’s mouth drops open slightly.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Theo shrugs, those same shadows from earlier returning as he looks away. His gaze focuses on the window, but he doesn’t move back to prodding it just yet. His voice is low and quiet when he speaks. “That’s why I’m a twenty-one-year-old sophomore. I got held back.”

Liam doesn’t know what to say. The revelation doesn’t bother him, really. He just adds it to the ever growing list of things that make Theo such an enigma. But judging by the tightness in the other boy’s shoulders, and the way he won’t look at him, Liam’s pretty sure it bothers _him._ Or that he expects a certain reaction, maybe the kind he’s used to.

Liam feels his heart clench a little in sympathy. It strikes a chord of familiarity in him, and he can  vaguely picture a young boy telling his best friend the reason he couldn’t help getting angry sometimes, expecting the friend to look at him with fear.

Instead, he’d gotten jokes about being the Hulk.

“Once?” Liam says, tilting his head to the side. The corner of his lips turn up into a playful half-smile. “Or twice?”

It brings the barest hint of amusement to Theo’s face. Liam sees him make the connection, and chuckle, the move knocking some of the tension from his frame. “I was fourteen the first time, and seventeen the second.”

Liam raises a brow, somewhere between intrigued and impressed. “What’d you do?”

“Fist fight,” Theo shrugs. “Petty theft.”

“Like shoplifting?” He feels instantly bad for his sticky fingers comment earlier.

“Among other things.”

While his tone of voice is still neutral, his answers are getting shorter, and Liam wonders if his window of open honesty may be closing. So instead, motions to the actual window. “Just don’t break anything, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he winks. Then he returns his focus to the task at hand. His fingers press against the frame in a few more places before he seems to find what he’s looking for. Then he pulls his lighter and another lollipop from his pocket.

He tugs the wrapper off with his teeth, flicking his lighter open in one hand. He ignites it, then brings the bright red candy closer. Carefully, Theo proceeds to place the hot lollipop against the glass of the window, letting it sit for a moment before he returns it to the flame.

He repeats the process a second times, adding another dollar-sized red mark on the window not too far from the first. Then he blows out the lollipop and holds it out to Liam.

“Um,” the younger boy says. “I’m okay, thanks.”

Theo chuckles. “I need you to hold it. Quickly.”

“Oh!” Liam exclaims, reaching for it. The moment he takes it from Theo’s grip, the older boy pockets his lighter and leans forward, placing his thumbs on the red goo and his palms flat against the glass. He presses against the window, and then upwards.

Liam watches as Theo moves the window back and forth in the smallest increments. The wood frame whines and creaks, but doesn’t budge very far. A violent shiver rolls through Liam’s body, and he hugs his arms tighter around himself as he stands there. Up here, the air is cooler, and clinging to the sweat on his body produced from climbing seven flights of stairs.

To distract himself from the chill, Liam keeps talking. “Is juvie where you picked up smoking?”

“Guilty as charged,” Theo laughs. The sound is overshadowed slightly by the hiss and groan of the wood frame of the window. Liam thinks he’s making progress. “All the cool kids were doing it, y’know?”

Liam examines the mostly melted candy in his hand, frowning. “How does this help?”

“Something else I picked up in juvie. Keeps my fingerprints off the glass if I don’t have gloves,” Theo says, and Liam realizes that while his hands are flat against the window, he tips of his fingers are bent away from the glass.

“Huh,” Liam hums, quietly impressed. The window is rattling now, Theo managing to shake it up and down about an inch each time. Liam opens his mouth to ask how this gets the window unlocked when suddenly there’s a loud pop.

The window pane falls forward, into the apartment. Liam barely has time to blink before Theo is in motion, reaching through the opening to grab the top of the frame before the whole thing tries to dive for the ground and shatter.

He lets out a shaky breath, and the smile on his face is relieved as he looks up at Liam. “Woo,” he sighs. “That was close.”

Theo leans in through the open frame, and carefully deposits the pane on the ground, propping it against the wall. Then he stands back, grinning at Liam and motioning to the open window. “After you, Lima Bean.”

Liam steps closer, crouching down slightly and placing his hands on the windowsill. He swings one leg in, then the other, sliding into the apartment like he’s playing limbo. When he’s standing upright again, he turns to watch Theo clamber in behind him.

The older boy dusts himself off, then motions to the apartment. “Go on then.”

“Are you not coming with?” Liam whispers. If there’s still someone here, hiding in the dark, he’s sure the window break in alerted them to their presence, but you never know.

“I’ve got a window to fix,” Theo chuckles, holding up the window pane. There’s a flash of teeth in the dark. “It’s a two bedroom apartment, shouldn’t take you long to search.”

Liam scowls. “What if—” his voice drops to a quiet hiss, “what if whoever broke in is still here?”

“Just scream if you run into trouble.” He shrugs, then turns back to the window, leaving Liam to glare at the back of his head.

“What a great partner you are,” Liam mutters under his breath. He heads directly for the kitchen to his left, flicking on the light once he’s there and flooding the apartment with warmth. He realizes that it’ll probably set off more of Stiles’ motion sensors and cameras, if the window hasn’t already done that, so he shoots a quick text to Scott telling him he’s in the apartment and checking things out.

He doesn’t expect a response, considering he’d sounded pretty tired on the phone earlier.

Liam steps through the other side of the kitchen into the apartment entrance, bypassing the open front door and heading down the small hall towards the bedrooms. He thanks his lucky stars that Stiles’ room is closest, because he slips quietly into the darkness and reaches for the baseball bat he knows the older boy keeps behind the door.

Then he turns on the light, holding the bat aloft and waiting for any potential threats.

But the room is empty, and undisturbed, despite being fairly messy. So is Scott’s. He double checks drawers and closets where people tend to hide valuables, or look for them in they’re looting, but nothing is amiss. In fact, the whole apartment seems fine. Not a thing looks out of place.

Except for Theo, who pops out of the washroom as Liam is leaving Scott’s room. His sudden appearance startles Liam, who nearly jumps out of his skin, raising the bat above his head.

Theo’s lips twitch, barely managing to contain a laugh. “Thinking of switching sports, Lima Bean?”

“Shut up,” he mutters, ducking into Stiles’ room to put the bat back in its place. “I thought you were fixing a window?”

“I did,” Theo beams, lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers. “Just washed the candy and grease off my hands, that’s all. Find any burglars?”

“No,” Liam shakes his head, leading the older boy back out to the living room. He throws on the light, and does a quick once over of the room before he deems it unchanged. He backtracks to the front door, and swings it wide open. “Shit.”

The wood is splintered around the lock, and the door handle on the outside is loose, slightly crooked. “Someone clearly broke in,” Liam says, and Theo peers around the door to take a look. “But didn’t take anything?”

“That’s a lot of effort for nothing,” Theo frowns. He wiggles the broken door handle back and forth. “It’s not totally fucked. I could probably just screw it back in if they’ve got—”

“Excuse me,” a deep voice sounds off to Liam’s left, and for the second time in as many minutes he almost jumps a foot in the air. He spins around and spots a tall, broad-shouldered young man with dark eyes and darker hair, buzzed short. “Do you guys live here?”

“My friends do,” Liam says immediately. His voice wavers only slightly, because the guy is _huge._ Tall and bulky and the way he’s looking at them is somewhere between threatening and predatory. “Their security system detected a break in. They asked us to check it out.”

Suddenly the guy softens, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck. A redness creeps across his face and under the collar of his black tee. “Uh, yeah, sorry about that. That was my boyfriend.”

“What?” Liam blinks.

“Apparently criminal justice kids party a little too hard,” he says. “Jordan got home late, very drunk, and totally thought this was our apartment. We live next door.”

Liam follows the guy’s pointed finger down the hall, then back. “So he _broke in_?”

“Only a little?” The guy grins wickedly. He lets out a light chuckle. “Dick move, I know. He’s gonna have hell to pay in the morning, trust me. But I heard you guys talking and figured I’d come over and apologize—and offer to pay for the damages.”

Liam opens his mouth, then closes it abruptly. He has no idea what to say, considering it’s not his place. There’s a loud, contemplative hum behind him.

“It’s not that bad, actually,” Theo says, and Liam turns to see him on his knees in front of the lock, screwdriver in hand.

“Where did you—” Liam starts.

Theo waves him off. “They keep their toolbox in the front hall closet, it’s cool. I’ve almost got it fixed.”

There’s a slight creak of wood, and then Theo’s triumphant _hah_! He stands up, stepping back from the door. The handle isn’t crooked anymore, and there’s only a bit of visible scratching around it. The wood’s still pretty splintered on the side, though.

“It’ll lock, but we’ll have to go back the way we came,” Theo tells him in a low voice, answering the question he hasn’t figured out how to voice. He feels awkward with the stranger just standing there, watching him. For all they know, _he_ could be the one that broke in, and stepped into the hall when he heard them coming.

Liam’s exhausted, and so many scenarios are running through his head. “What did you say your name was?” He finally blurts out, turning to face the stranger.

“I didn’t,” the guy grins, and though handsome, Liam finds it’s still sort of terrifying. He holds out a hand. “Halwyn.”

“Nice to meet you,” Liam says. “I think.”

He hears Theo’s snicker just behind him and resists the urge to turn and kick him in the shin. Halwyn smiles widely, showing off rows of perfectly white teeth. His shoulders shake with a light chuckle, and from his dark green hoodie he pulls a little card.

**Dr. Halwyn Hund, MD  
310-435-4686**

“Give them that, would you?” He smiles. “Let them know I’ll pay for the door.”

“You’re a Doctor?” Liam blinks, tone flecked with disbelief.

“A psychiatrist. Just graduated last year,” Halwyn nods. “I plan to open my own practice once Jordan’s done this year.”

“Uh. Cool?”

“Excuse him,” Theo snickers, and Liam feels an arm drop around his shoulders. “It’s a little late for his brain to be functional.”

“Hey!” Liam hisses at the same time that Halwyn laughs.

“Perfectly understandable,” the older man nods. “Well, you two enjoy the rest of your night. Sorry Jordan happened to interrupt it.”

“It’s alright,” Theo smirks, and this close, Liam can feel the chuckle rumble through him. “What’s life without a little adventure, right?”

Halwyn bids them goodbye and disappears back into his apartment next door, sliding the lock home once inside. Only then does Liam spin and smack Theo on the arm, brushing him off his shoulders.

“What was that for?” Liam scowls.

Theo offers him a light shrug, waving him inside. Liam shuffles past, and the older boy locks the door behind them.

“I was just trying to get him to leave. Did you want him to notice we were leaving by the fire escape as opposed to the front door?” Theo quirks a brow.

“No,” Liam grumbles, arms crossed in front of him.

Together, they head for the living room window. Theo slides it up and open, and motions for Liam to go first. He does, after pausing to stick his tongue out at the older boy first, earning him a loud, happy laugh.

They descend the fire escape in relative silence. It’s not until they reach the bottom that it’s broken, not by a voice but by Liam’s chattering teeth. The early morning chill is nipping at his bare arms again, and despite the fact that it’s probably only 49 degrees, it feels like it’s fucking _frosting_ the sweat he’s collected by climbing the fire escape a second time.

“You cold?” Theo asks as he hopes down from the ladder. Liam can’t exactly say no, considering he’s standing there shifting his weight from foot to foot, rubbing at his arms.

“I tossed my cookie dough sweater into my laundry pile and forgot to grab another one,” Liam explains, shrugging. “It’s my own fault.”

“It’s a long walk back.”

“I know. It’s fine.”

“Dude, you’re shivering.”

“ _I’m fine_.”

“You know,” Theo starts, and Liam watches with horror as he pulls his varsity hoodie up over his shoulders and off in one fluid motion, “I hope your future career doesn’t involve you taking care of other people. Because you kind of suck at taking care of yourself.”

He holds out the hoodie to him.

“I’m—”

“Fine?” Theo says, and pushes the hoodie into his hands. “Just shut up and take it, Lima Bean.”

Reluctantly, Liam does as he’s told. The varsity sweater is warm as he slides into it, and given their similar builds, fits him perfectly. “What about you?”

Theo shrugs, but there’s a triumphant smile on his lips. “I run hot.”

Liam barely resists rolling his eyes, stuffing his hands into the hoodie pockets and starting the trek back. His fingers brush against a handful of lollipops, and almost like it remembers then and there that it’s had nothing else since dinner last night, Liam’s stomach lets out a particularly nasty growl. Theo says nothing, which means for once in his life he’s being polite, or he hasn’t noticed.

He knows he could check for himself, either on his phone or wristwatch, but that involves leaving the warmth of the hoodie. “What time is it?”

“About five, I think,” Theo hums, then reaches into his sweats and pulls out his phone to confirm. “Five-ten, actually. Why?”

“ _Mooncakes_ opens in twenty minutes,” Liam shrugs.

At the mention of the best pancake establishment in the city (at least, according to Liam and most of his friends), Theo’s face lights up. It helps that he’s looking up at the sky, where the sun is just beginning to peak over the horizon. He turns to look at Liam with a beaming smile.

“Are you asking me to breakfast, Lima Bean?” His eyes are bright and dancing with mirth.

“I just don’t want to sit alone in a booth,” Liam says, his tone sharp and defensive. He can feel his face turning red, and realizes with embarrassment what the invitation might sound like. They had, after all, baked cookies and broken into a building together in the last few hours. Following that up with breakfast might be misconstrued as a very strange date.

“And here I thought we were becoming friends,” Theo sighs, but the sly smile on his face is entirely Cheshire-like. “That you were growing to like my company, even.”

“We are! I am!” Theo screeches to a halt to laugh as the words tumble from Liam’s mouth, high-pitched and hurried. He wonders if his face is going to get stuck in a permanent scowl if they’re to be friends. “I just fucking want hash browns, man.”

“Alright.” Theo pulls his keys from his back pocket with a chuckle, dangling them in midair. “Let’s go then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is a consistent update schedule my dudes. please, someone teach me. my crops are dying. (no but seriously, I'm in the middle of a move and hopefully things will settle back to normal soon.)


	4. January 28th, 5:23 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of breakfast and new friends.

It doesn’t take them long to make it to _Mooncakes_. The streets are still empty at this hour, and it’s a Sunday. Despite that, Liam’s pretty sure he drifts off once or twice. Between the warmth of the hoodie and the fact that Theo puts the heat on lightly, his eyes flutter close and when they open, they’re that much closer to their destination.

The second time it happens, he’s rudely woken up by Theo slamming on the brakes and the truck screeching to a halt. Liam slides forward in his seat, jerking awake and staring at an empty four-way stop. They’re just a little bit past the stop sign.

“You okay?” He glances over just in time to see the older boy look away abruptly, face flushing red.

“Are _you_?” Liam asks, blinking a few times to clear the spots from his vision.

“Yeah.” His voice is a little weak, but he swallows once and it’s back to normal. “Yeah, fuck. Sorry, it’s a—”

“A tricky one,” Liam nods, rubbing at his face where he’d been leaning against the glass. “It’s a ticket trap. Mason’s blown that stop sign plenty of times, and he’s the best driver I know.”

“Yeah.” Theo clears his throat. “Guess I just… wasn’t paying attention.”

They pull into the diner parking lot a few minutes later, and the two all but throw themselves out of the car, their complaining stomachs nearly in sync. Liam notices Theo give his crooked park job a once over before he shrugs.

“I’m in the lines,” he says, waving Liam forward. “It counts.”

The bell above the door chimes as the boys walk into the nearly empty diner. There’s a couple of truckers getting their first coffee of the day before heading out or continuing their late-night run, and a small trio of giggling teens in a back corner booth.

They pick a table that’s nice and central, where Theo can still see his truck, and both of them collapse into the booth.

“So,” Theo says, once Liam has tucked himself into the corner on his side and sunk into the hoodie slightly. He blinks at the older boy a few times, trying to will away the exhaustion he’s starting to feel. “I thought you had a bake sale this morning?”

The words snap Liam from his stupor, and he sits straight up in his seat. “Shit!” He shouts.

It draws the judgmental eye of one of the truckers and Theo simply waves at them, grinning brightly. He turns his attention back to Liam, his gaze intently questioning. “Did you actually forget?”

“Sort of,” Liam mumbles, fishing his phone out of his pocket. He brings up a recent conversation named  and starts typing. “It’s fine. I’ll just text Hayden and tell her I can’t make it.”

“And the cookies?” Theo sounds like he’s smirking, so Liam vehemently refuses to look up.

“She can swing by and get them,” Liam shrugs. “She has a key.”

“A friend with a key, hmm?” The words are spoken with a knowing hum that raises the hair on the back of his neck. “ _And_ you stayed up until two AM trying to bake cookies for her? How _are_ you the only one not getting laid this weekend?”

Liam flinches so hard he hits send before the message is done. His eyes nearly bug out of his skull as he looks up at Theo incredulously. There’s a very smug smile stretching across his lips now. The younger boy sputters, mouth opening and closing unattractively until he finally gets a hold of himself.

“Yeah, well,” he mutters through clenched teeth as he taps out the rest of his message. “Neither are you.”

Theo barks out a loud laugh that rattles the cutlery on the table. He quiets a split second later when the waitress appears at the edge of the table, smile far too bright for how early in the morning it is. She looks a little older than them, with tightly curled ringlets and joy in her blue eyes.

“Good morning!”

_Oh no_ , Liam realizes with horror. _She’s a morning person._

“What can I get you boys?” Her pen tap-tap-taps against her little notepad in excitement.

Liam doesn’t hesitate; despite how blinding her happiness is to his very weary eyes. And not once having picked up the menu sitting directly in front of him. “ _Eggcellent Special_ , please. Could I get them sunny side up, with whole wheat and swap the ham for extra bacon?”

Her pep doesn’t falter, and her eyes sparkle with a laugh. “Sure. And coffee?”

“Please,” he practically begs.

“And you?”

Theo is the complete opposite of both Liam and the waitress. Seemingly unfazed by the hour, but calm and easygoing. He’s leaned back on his side of the booth, arms crossed behind his head. “I’ll have the same,” he says, a lazy grin on his lips. “But scrambled with rye. And can I also get a side of chocolate chip pancakes and a hot cocoa? Extra whip.”

“Sure,” she giggles, scribbling down the last bit of their order and then reaching for the menus. It might be the hour, or maybe that he’s feeling pretty tired, but something about both their tones rubs Liam the wrong way.

It results in him practically growling his response to Theo’s earlier question once the waitress is out of earshot. “She’s my ex.”

“The waitress?” The relaxed smile washes off his lips.

“What?” Liam’s brows furrow deeply and he shakes his head. “No! Hayden. The friend I’m helping with the bake sale. That’s why she has a key.”

“Oh,” Theo blinks, his awkwardness fading. Instead, there’s amusement twinkling in his eyes that sets the hair on the back of Liam’s neck standing. “Staring at you like a piece of meat with her roommate ex?”

Liam flushes, almost sinking back into his corner of the booth. His voice is small when he speaks. “Yes. That one.”

There’s a little snort across the table. “And yet somehow, it’s a dry weekend for you.”

“Shut up,” Liam whips around to hiss at the older boy, but he’s not looking at him. Instead, Theo has gathered up all the jelly packets and is in the process of stacking them, forming two simple little towers. A handful of packets in he adds a bit of complexity, and Liam finds himself staring, almost transfixed, as he spaces them out and starts adding an archway.

“What are you doing?”

“Erecting a building.” The sly grin on his lips lets Liam know his choice of words is entirely on purpose. He almost doesn’t resist rolling his eyes in response.

He’s rewarded for his self control when the waitress returns with glorious, glorious coffee. She’s barely done filling his cup when Liam reaches for it with greedy fingers, shaking three sugar packets between his thumb and index. He rips them open with his teeth and dumps them in, then reaches for the milk.

He catches Theo’s disgusted look over the mountain of whipped cream adorning his hot cocoa. “What?”

“That is a heinous amount of sugar,” Theo tells him.

Liam merely shrugs. “Coffee’s gross, but it helps me not to fall over where I stand.” He pauses, midway through pouring his second milk in, and looks down at the booth. Then shrugs again. “Where I sit, I guess.”

“Of course it does, considering you suffocate it in sugar.” He huffs out a little laugh, taking a long sip of his drink. When he pulls away, there’s a mustache of whipped cream across his upper lip. He looks absolutely ridiculous.

“You can’t tell me you don’t like sugar,” Liam snickers, grin blossoming on his lips alongside the warmth in his chest. It’s a lightness, a little buzz that only worsens when Theo reaches up to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Liam averts his gaze, staring resolutely at the coffee he’s stirring directly before him.

“Not in my coffee,” Theo rolls his shoulders, fingers tapping lightly against his cup. “I drink it black.”

“Gross.” Liam’s face scrunches up, his voice disappearing into his mug of coffee. He watches over the rim as Theo stirs the rest of his whipped cream into his hot cocoa, green eyes twinkling with delight.

A look that turns into outright mischievous joy a moment later when Theo sits back in his seat, looking relaxed as his eyes drift up and past Liam. Slowly, the younger boy follows his line of sight, and finds a jukebox tucked into the corner of the diner.

“No,” Liam shakes his head immediately.

Theo’s answering smile is toothy. “I haven’t even said anything.”

“You don’t need to.” Liam crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his seat. “You’re going to walk over there, and you’re going to key in the same song over and over again and slowly drive myself and the other patrons of this fine establishment _insane_.”

“Lima Bean, please.” Theo presses one hand to his chest dramatically. “I can’t believe you think so little of me. I’d _at least_ put another song in the middle somewhere to throw everyone off.”

“Mhmm.” He sounds about convinced as he feels.

“That wasn’t even what I was planning anyway, but I suppose now you’ll never know,” Theo shrugs.

“What?” Liam frowns. “Why?”

The older boy’s lips split into a beaming smile, but it isn’t directed at him. When the smell of bacon hits his nose, he knows why. The waitress has returned with their food. She places their plates down, then pulls a slip of paper from her apron and sits it face down on the little jelly tower Theo has built between them. “You guys let me know if you need anything else!”

“Oh, actually—” But she’s gone before Liam can get the words out, not once glancing in his direction. His forehead puckers, and irritation prickles at his skin like a rash. “Did she just… Does she think we’re…”

He waves a hand back and forth between them, face twisted in an almost pitiful request for Theo to fill in the blank and complete his sentence on his own. But Theo’s already cut into his pancakes, and his eyes sparkle with excited hunger as he shoves a forkful of fluffy, chocolate-chip goodness into his mouth. A blissful look overtakes his whole face and he hums happily.

Liam grumbles and shovels eggs into his mouth.

“O’ a da’e?” Theo says after a moment, before pausing and swallowing his bite of pancake. He raises a brow at the younger boy, fork held aloft and pointedly aimed. “I’m feeling a little offended, Lima Bean. You make it sound like a bad thing.”

Liam looks away, focusing on his food instead of the ridiculous boy across from him. The whole night has been a series of weird, unexpected curve balls, and he isn’t entirely sure how they got here, discussing _dating_ over an early breakfast, but he’s so far out of his depth that he wants it to stop. Like, as soon as possible. Immediately, really.

He’s known Theo for maybe a cumulative seven hours, and it’s weird. So instead of responding, he slices at his eggs with his fork, separating the whites from the runny yolks. He spears one of the yellow blobs, proceeds to drag his hashbrowns across his plate into the goo, and picks up a piece of toast before realizing its plain.

“Are any of those jams non-detrimental to your building structure?” Liam asks, and watches Theo’s widen. First in what seems to be surprise at being asked that way, before it softens to an expression that looks almost impressed.

“Some,” he nods, plucking one off the top and holding it out. “You want grape?”

He sticks his tongue out in disgust. “Dude, for toast? Strawberry or bust.”

He’s met with a chuckle and then Theo swaps out the purple packet for a red one, keeping an eye on his tower as it wobbles, then remains steady. Liam greedily reaches for it, his fingers grazing Theo’s as he wraps around the tiny jam container. He ignores the way the hair on the back of his neck stands up, and retreats to his side of the table, holding the tiny strawberry jam close and ripping it open.

“Grape is literally only good in jam,” Theo shakes his head, tearing off a bite of bacon for diving in for more pancake.

“Must be hard,” Liam sighs dramatically, spreading jam on his toast before finally, triumphantly lumping a mixture of yolk and hash brown on top. “Being wrong all the time.”

It earns him an encouraging smile. One that he almost misses because he’s far too busy enjoying the bite of deliciousness he just took. Still, he’s acutely aware of Theo staring at him, waiting, so he swallows his food and explains.

“So, you know how they use fake flavouring for grape candy, right?” Liam asks. He doesn’t bother to look up or wait for a response. He scoops at his food and prattles on, his words lifted from a rehearsed argument he’s had with Mason far too many times to count. “Well everyone knows they’re not really the flavour they’re named after. Like, they tell you it’s—“

He pulls one of Theo’s lollipops from the hoodie pocket, and squints at the crinkled label wrapped around it. “— _cherry_ and you accept it, but it’s not cherry. Grape’s the same thing.”

“Okay…” Theo looks cautious, but sounds genuinely interested. Or tentatively, at the very least.

“Well, when you disassociate the candy colouring from whatever fruit it’s _supposed_ to be, things are pretty different. If you’re not constantly trying to compare it to real fruit, you might find some flavours are better than you thought.” He lays the lollipop beneath the little archway of Theo’s jam packet tower. “Jam’s different though. It’s made with real fruit, so what you see on the packet is what you get. And everyone knows that strawberries are the best _real_ fruit.”

There’s a soft, quiet smile on Theo’s lips, and his shoulders tremble with the lightest chuckle. He cocks his head to one side, eyes sliding down to his breakfast as he says gently: “I wouldn’t know; I’m allergic.”

Liam’s heart plummets into the pit of his stomach so quickly he almost audibly chokes. Heat spreads across his cheeks and neck, and his cutlery clatters onto his plate in his haste to move the open jam packet further away from the other boy. “Shit, dude! I’m sorry! I didn’t know—I wouldn’t have—”

“It’s cool, Lima Bean.” Theo waves him off with a forkful of pancake, easy smile still in place on his lips. He doesn’t look panicked or wary of the killer jam flavouring, so Liam relaxes slowly. “It’s only bad for me if I ingest it. Gives me a nasty rash.”

“Mmmm,” Liam makes a face, because that is so not a pleasant image. Still, as they return to their breakfast in companionable silence, he never once touches his toast again. He doesn’t even think twice about it. Mostly because he’s approaching

It’s only as they’re winding down, nearly done inhaling their food, when Liam remembers why they’d begun discussing jam and flavourings in the first place. Why he’d been more than happy to ramble on with nonsense to deflect from the thing that turned him into an awkward idiot in the first place.

“Shit,” he curses under his breath, eyeing the folded receipt still on top of Theo’s jam structure. “Uh, I think I have cash on me.”

He leans to one side, pulling his wallet from his jeans. He flips it open, only to see a three singles staring pathetically up at him. Maybe some pocket lint.

“Lima Bean.”

“Uh, hang on,” Liam continues, leaning the other way to fish for change in another pocket. He manages a folded up single and two quarters. “Shit.”

“ _Liam_.”

The younger boy whips his head up at the sound of his name on unfamiliar lips. Lips that are curved up into a lopsided grin. Though he never heard her return to their table, the waitress is standing there, in the process of exchanging Theo’s twenty dollar bill for coins. He declines them, and she offers him a shy smile before walking away.

“What was that?”

Theo’s folding his wallet and stuffing it back into his pocket when he looks up. “What was what?”

There’s an itch in his left elbow, a discomfort that blossoms in the middle of his chest like pressure, insistent and annoying. He pulls the money from his wallet and holds it out over the table towards Theo. “Here. I’ll give you the rest once we’re back at the dorm.”

The older boy chuckles, rising from his seat. “It’s cool, dude. My treat.”

Liam follows him towards the door, grumbling. In the last several hours, Theo has helped him bake cookies, break into a friend’s apartment _and_ paid for breakfast? His shoulders sink a little, words escaping his lips at an almost whisper. “This is totally going to come back and bite me in the ass.”

“Only if you ask me to,” Theo says brightly, and Liam misses the step off the curb, nearly face planting in the parking lot. He looks up, mouth agape, and Theo looses a laugh that shakes his whole body, arms wrapped around his middle. “Oh man, your face!”

“Shut up!” Liam yelps, leaning forward and shoving at Theo’s shoulder. He’s losing count of how often he has to say the two words to the other boy, who looks absolutely unfazed by the remark. He’s still laughing as he steadies himself and starts towards his truck.

“You gonna stay awake this time?” Theo asks over the hood. His voice is light, teasing. Liam throws him a glare.

“Ha ha.” He clambers in, and fumbles with the radio dial as Theo starts the engine. He goes through several stations, skimming as they pull out of the parking lot and hit the road. Half are playing slow tempo songs or tiredly discussing the morning’s news, so they’re a few minutes out when he finally settles on one.

_Won’t you stay ‘til the AM?_  
All my favourite conversations  
Always made in the AM 

He taps his foot along to the beat, too tired to care that he’s jamming out to a One Direction song in plain sight of someone who’s teased him mercilessly for far less in the short amount of time they’ve known each other. When he chances a glance at the boy in question, he’s smiling and shaking his head softly, hair lit by the just-born sunlight filtering in through the open driver window.

But his fingers are drumming lightly on the steering wheel, clearly in tune. And he looks to be enjoying himself.

Liam’s brows raise. It’s not exactly a sight he expected to see from the sarcastic former delinquent. As they pull to a stop at a red light with a scattered few cars, Theo looks over at him, grinning. “See something you like?”

“What?” He shakes his head, laughing a little louder than necessary. “No, you just didn’t strike me as the boyband type.”

“Hmm,” Theo curls his lips a little. “My music taste is pretty varied. I listen to pretty much anything but country.”

This time, Liam’s laugh isn’t forced. “Same! How many of them can have the same pick up, worn leather boots and busty blonde?”

Theo snickers. “Oh, and classical puts me to sleep. But that’s because my mom played it a lot when I was a baby.”

“Mine just drove me around the block when I couldn’t sleep,” Liam says, leaning back in his seat. Predictably, a yawn accompanied the sentence. “It’s probably why I always fall asleep on car rides.”

“What about driving?”

The words pluck at a sore spot in Liam’s chest, and he glances out the window, away from the other boy. He doesn’t know how easy he is to read when he’s this tired, but he doesn’t want to find out. “Can’t. Don’t have a license.”

He hears the sympathetic _ouch_ to his left. “How do you _get_ anywhere? And please don’t say the bus. LA transit is a joke.”

Liam feels a tug at the corner of his lips. “Nah, I have an amazing best friend. Mason drives me places.”

When he’s met with silence, he turns to see Theo giving him a sly look. “I see the real reason you’ve befriended me here. You need a backup chauffeur when the usual one is out of town.”

Liam’s eyes widen and a choking noise escapes his mouth as they pull into the dorm parking lot. “No! He usually drives because he’s going there too! I don’t like, ask him to take me places whenever I want! It’s not like—”

Theo’s laugh replaces the thrum of the engine as it cuts out, and Liam realizes he’s been played. Again. And his face burns.

“So. Easy.” The older boy shakes his head, pulling his keys from the truck and hopping out. “Your sister went too easy on you if you’re this gullible, Lima Bean.”

Liam groans. “One time she convinced me that the smallest grape in a bunch was poisonous.” He drags a hand over his face as they start the walk back to their dorm. “I wasted almost an entire plate because they were all the same size.”

“Oh my god,” Theo’s hand wipes at his eyes, laughter straining his voice. “That’s actually worse than the time I tried to play with Tara’s favourite Lego set, but she threatened to call the Lego police on me because the box said ages nine and up and I was only seven. For weeks I was paranoid they were going to show up and arrest me and only played with it after she’d gone to sleep.”

“And _I’m_ the gullible one here?” The younger boy snickers, shaking his head. The sound of jingling catches his attention, and he looks over to see Theo spinning his keys around his index finger. He skids to a stop almost immediately, suddenly remembering his very real and present problem. “Shit.”

“What’s the matter?” Theo slows his pace, looking backwards.

“I don’t have my keys.” Liam bites at his lower lip, thinking over his options in his head. He’s definitely past exhausted, but his coffee-addled brain is still doing its best to work overtime for him. He could go to the library, and wait out Mason’s return. But he has nothing to study with, little juice left on his phone, and he’s pretty sure his best friend mentioned evening hours for his drive back to campus.

Alternatively, he debates calling Nolan, but he knows full well that one, he never gets up before noon on a weekend and two, he _definitely_ won’t be happy about being interrupted post-date, assuming it went well. (And Liam does assume, seeing as he wasn’t home when they’d dropped off cookies.)

The thought of cookies brings up option number three. He knows Hayden always wakes with the sun, because she’s a big fan of early morning jobs, and so he knows despite the hour she might be up. But then, she’d probably try and talk him into attending the bake sale as promised, despite the fact that he probably looks as tired as he feels in his whole body.

“Not a problem, dude,” Theo says, cracking a wide, mischievous smile. Not unlike the Cheshire cat grin he’d flashed before they’d left for the diner earlier. “I got you.”

“Why do I feel like I should be nervous about that?”

Theo makes a dismissive noise in his throat, waving Liam after him as he takes off towards their dorm at a quicker pace. Liam moves to follow, and between the warm varsity hoodie and brisk pace under a rapidly brightening sky, the walk feels far shorter than it did when they’d left in the cold, early morning darkness. In no time at all, they’re back at their residence, swiping their ID cards through the slot to get in.

They take the stairs, Liam insisting that he’s tired, but not enough to use an elevator when they live on the second floor. He trails behind the older boy all the way to his door, where Theo pulls to a stop and inspects his own keys. He fiddles with them for a moment before disconnecting what looks to be a UCLA keychain, if the colours are anything to go by. He pockets the rest of the metal, spins the thin loop until the plastic charm is free, and hands it to Liam.

The younger boy cups his hands to receive it, frowning down at the sad, faded-looking bear.

“It’s been through the wash a few times,” Theo chuckles, dropping to one knee in front of Liam’s door. He slowly bends the ring out of its shape and into a long, thin piece of metal not unlike a hairpin or paper clip, and then promptly inserts it into the lock at eye level.

Liam watches in fascination as he works. Most of his movements are obscured but his head, so the younger boy moves to lean against the wall on the other side of him, taking in the sight of his fingers jimmying around and his tongue caught between his lips, at the corner. It reminds him of Lyana’s intense focus when drawing, or Mason’s when reading a particularly captivating book, and it brings a fond smile to Liam’s face.

It also helps distract from the whispered words of encouragement Theo seems to be giving the door handle, like it’s someone he’s trying to fuck. The absurdity of the concept almost makes Liam laugh, and he’s about to open his mouth and thank the older boy for trying when he hears a click. Now, as his lips part, it’s in shock rather than dismay.

“Holy shit.” Liam blinks, genuinely impressed as his door creaks open. “You actually did it.”

“Was there ever a doubt?” Theo mock bows, standing up and crossing his arms as he leans sideways against the frame, fingers wiggling over the edge of his biceps. “Magic fingers and all.”

Blood rushes to Liam’s face, and looks away and into the darkness of his room with longing. He can practically hear his bed calling to him, drawing him away from every awkward response his brain tries to force out of his mouth. “Right. Wellllll.”

There’s a soft laugh across from him, and then a gentle touch brushes against his fingers as Theo rescues his bear keychain from Liam’s grasp. “I should probably get to bed. Don’t wanna completely fuck up my sleep schedule, after all.”

“Yeah,” Liam nods, clearing his throat. When he looks back, Theo has drifted a foot or two backwards, towards his room. His eyes, however, are still locked on the younger boy, and the curve of his lips is only slightly full of it. “I had a fun night.”

“Me too,” Theo salutes him, stepping further away. “See you around, Lima Bean.”

Liam thinks briefly of asking Theo for his number. He had, after all, had a fun night. A wild and very ridiculous one, with someone he’d once called several unsavory names over a mere chocolate pudding, but a good time nonetheless. One that he could see himself repeating on a slightly less stressful scale, if the offer of friendship was still open.

But then the thought passes, and he’s gone, disappearing into his own room down the hall.

Liam sighs, slipping into his room and closing the door softly behind him. As his eyes adjust to the light, he sees his keys on the counter, right next to the forgotten tray of cookies. He curses himself under his breath, grabs them, and then stomps towards his room. As he crosses the threshold, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

He wonders if it’s Hayden, finally answering his text from the diner earlier. His eyes scan his room, debating if there’s enough to block the door with should she try and rouse him when she drops by for the cookies. The moment he spots his bed, he realizes he simply doesn’t have the energy and kicks off his shoes into the pile of laundry before falling forward onto the mattress, bouncing slightly. He winces as he all but crushes the backpack he’d thrown on his bed earlier that night, and his phone presses against his thigh, hard.

“Dammit,” he mutters. He’s so tired. Sluggish, Liam drags his phone from his jeans and up towards his face, a feat made much more difficult by refusing to roll onto his side or back. His screen is glaringly bright in the darkness of his room, but he still makes out the words of his most recent message.

_Night, Lima Bean._

Liam blinks. Several times. Stares at the emoji labeling the new conversation.

When in the hell had Theo gotten his number? Or his phone? Ultimately, he decides he’s too tired to figure it out. So he simply types out _you too_ , hits send, and slowly, painstakingly wiggles out of his jeans, kicking them to the floor along with his backpack. There’s a loud thump as the thing full of books hits the ground.

He’s about to crawl under the covers when he realizes he’s still wearing Theo’s hoodie.

“A problem for tomorrow Liam,” he mumbles, swapping it out for a t-shirt laying across his pillow that he’s 90% he wore to bed the night before. Probably. He tosses the varsity sweater on the back of his chair, lets a yawn overtake his whole body, and collapses into his pillows, content.

 


End file.
